


Brittle Effigy

by randomismyname



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 65th Hunger Games, 70th Hunger Games, Careers (Hunger Games), Childhood, F/M, Finnick Odair-Centric, Hunger Games Tributes, Pre-Canon, Pre-Hunger Games, Pre-Series, Victors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4741622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomismyname/pseuds/randomismyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The line between control and chaos has never been thinner. He wonders, as another coffin is scattered with dirt, if it has been worth it. Finnick, from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brittle Effigy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a non-profit work. All characters, settings and concepts relating to the Hunger Games franchise belong to Suzanne Collins.  
> Warnings: violence, sexual abuse and rape, forced prostitution, PTSD, Depression, suicide

** Brittle Effigy **

 

Chapter 1: Red Tide

 

The sun has not been seen for three weeks when the red tide is first sighted.

Pale corpses of fish litter the shore, licked by murky maroon waves that froth at the dark sand and mottled rocks lining the town’s beach. Above, screaming gulls wheel on sharp winds that drive against the sea – some pick, unsympathetic, at the broken remains of others caught by the storm. They do not eat the fish.

The light is dull: it is early, and the remnants of the tide’s blue flashes, spotted from local windows during the night, still break over cresting water near the shadows of the cliffs. Distantly, brightness blinks a warning through low cloud from the lighthouse on the headland, but there are no boats lining the horizon today.

People are scattered along the dunes in wind-bitten huddles, mouths moving anxiously and brows down-turned. Amongst them, armoured figures erect stiff wood-and-wire barricades through the salt-beaten grasses, but with each clap of the mallet that drives stakes sand-wards, the crowd only grows. Exposed faces now outnumber black visors, and plated wrists stretch apprehensively towards weapons hilted at the hip.

At the sandy foot of worn concrete steps, Finnick eyes the approaching tide with sobriety, unkempt fair hair whipping raw skin. He tucks his chin, stinging with the wind’s chill, into the collar of his brother’s old coat and draws his small shoulders up against the cold. The coat swamps him, but the drooping sleeves warm his fingers.

A solid red wave splinters against the cliffs and Finnick shrinks from the resulting burst of blue light; wary. Water isn’t supposed to glow.

Seeking security, he tips his head back to the young man standing at his rear, and a broad hand tightens around his. Brenn smiles, faintly, and Finnick presses closer to the rough comfort of his brother’s jumper. He is grateful for the contact; the sea has never seemed so foreign to him.

A short distance behind them, his parents speak in agitated tones to the owner of a nearby farm, the man’s two little girls shivering against the shelter of a high dune. The wind breaks words and hollows sound, but while little of their conversation is audible to Finnick, the weight of it is not lost on him.

Through a pause in the gale’s blasting torrents, he hears the man say that a pit is already being dug inland for the fish to be burnt. Finnick does not like this – he tugs at his brother’s wrist as a new surge of air drowns the farmer’s cracked speech. “They won’t burn the fish while they’re alive, will they?”

Brenn’s voice is low, preoccupied. “Only the dead fish.”

“Like those ones?”

A short finger indicates the rotting debris ahead, and older eyes follow it, mouth tight.

“Yes.” A moment’s hesitation. “And the shellfish grown on the farms.”

“They’ll still be alive, though.”

His brother nods, sombre, and the boy frowns at his feet, scraping his shoes through wet sand. Finnick doesn’t think it’s right to kill things without using them, and he is sure that it must hurt a lot to be burnt. He remembers the man talking to his parents, and a new concern occurs.

“Does that mean the shellfish farmers won’t have any ‘yield’?” He has just learnt this word, and its shaping is awkward through his lips.

Brenn’s eyebrows rise. “Yes, it does.”

“And that’s bad.”

Another nod. “That’s bad.”

A small fingernail picks at the coarse fibres over his brother’s stomach. “What about us?”

Brenn doesn’t answer immediately, and when he does, he is looking only at the clouded waves. “We’ll see. The bloom hasn’t reached home, yet.”

Finnick falls silent.

He doesn’t want the red water to reach home; if it does, his father will be upset and they won’t be able to look after the Farm. He knows that the Farm is very important to their family – his father tells him so – and he knows that, like the other farmers, they need their ‘yield’. Otherwise, they will be poor, and will have to live with the other families on the wharfs or the estuaries by the power plants. He wouldn’t like to leave the Farm.

A crack cuts the blustering air, followed by savage curses: the beam of a half-raised fence has been split into jagged shards in the rush to close the beach. Dropping the hammer to the coarse sand at the root of the broken shaft, the responsible peacekeeper hurls abuse at an on-looking elderly couple until they flinch their apologies, fragile frames cowed.

The dunes by the peacekeepers swiftly empty of people.

Brenn’s other hand falls firmly to Finnick’s shoulder, tugging him closer. “We shouldn’t stay too long.”

The beginnings of rain spit from the clouds, dotting dampness over his skin as the wind grows harsher still – the refuge of Brenn’s strong figure no longer affords protection. Morning advances, but the sky has not grown lighter and the shouts of the peacekeepers continue to approach. His gaze turns, nervous and impatient, to his parents, but is met only by their backs and the flustered gestures of the neighbouring farmer.

Beyond them, the man’s daughters, still curled amongst the peaks of sepia sand and brittle grasses, are staring at him. They are pale, bones too sharp over childish figures and clothes loose, their hair lashing the air in limp ropes. Finnick offers a smile. A gull shrieks overhead and they do not smile back. Flushing, he looks quickly away.

The rain is growing heavier, obscuring distant figures and casting sheets of slanting grey over the horizon, the sea a roiling burgundy. Thick droplets run icy trails past his collar, wetting the cloth beneath his coat and drawing a tooth-clenching shudder from him. There are fewer birds circling the currents above the water – as Finnick watches, eyelashes blurred and heavy, one dips from the sky.

He is unprepared when the wind changes direction.

The first blast of air to his face stops his breath, and he chokes, gasping at the rain to compensate. An itching settles in his throat. Finnick coughs, pressing a palm against his chest and frowning as he draws another deep breath from the wind. There is a strange odour blowing inshore: a hot, acrid scent that scorches his airways and smarts at his eyes. He coughs again, and finds that it hurts.

Another gull plunges to the waves.

He looks up, frightened. “Brenn -.”

Speech ignites a fiery scratching in his lungs, and he clutches his throat as he heaves. Brenn is crouching by him now, dark eyes bloodshot and watering as he looks from Finnick’s strained features to the shore, his throat working with barely constrained coughs. Another surge of wind bites at their skin, and then his brother is telling him to cover his mouth and _move_ , dragging him up the narrow concrete steps by shuddering hands, back towards his parents and the indistinct silhouette of the town. The stairs are taller than he remembers; the panicked expressions of his parents further than he’d thought and the surfaces are slick with wet sand and rain.

Through streaming eyes, he sees that the farmer and his children are gone.

Others along the beach are choking too, turning from the sea and throwing hoarse shouts of confusion to their companions as they run. Finnick and Brenn reach the top of the stairs just as the crowd gathers at its base, the peacekeepers – faces obscured – driving them inland. On every side, figures scale steps, high dunes and the mounds of protective rock that rim the foot of the town, slipping, swarming and heaving with each inhaled gasp of prickling heat.

Ochre grit and grass give way to cracked paving and salt-worn houses lined with weeds, dented buoys and lobster cages – all darkened by grey light. Finnick’s legs throb, starved of something he cannot name, and when his toe catches on the fractured ground, he finds he cannot get up. His parents are running ahead of them, his mother half-turned and father gesturing to the base of the low building beneath which their truck is parked, but strange bodies and loud treads broaden the gap between them, knocking against Finnick’s small back and elbows.

His fingers slide from Brenn’s.

“Finnick!”

He cannot see his brother; only knees and coats and rain, and his pulse jumps against aching ribs and boiling lungs. He folds himself inwards. Something feathered and dense thumps to the ground beside him, twitching as Brenn emerges between unfamiliar shoulders and shoves his way to Finnick’s side. Beside him, an armoured boot cracks the bones of the broken bird, and he recoils from the peacekeeper’s bellowed orders, the figure a stark pillar against heavy clouds. Rain rattles against the man’s form as Brenn pulls at his shoulders. Finnick stumbles against the concrete, but cannot stand, his throat torn by continuous coughs and eyes on the gull’s snapped wings.

Desperate, Brenn tugs again. “Finnick – please!”

He wants to stand, but his chest aches and burns and squeezes and he _can’t breathe_.

His father’s shout rasps over the wind, flashes of his face visible through the throng. “Just carry him, Brenn!”

Strong hands grip him beneath his arms and he is heaved over his brother’s sodden shoulder. As they batter their way to his parents, Finnick watches the peacekeeper through his dripping fringe, his gaze jerking with Brenn’s quick gait. The black visor follows their progress.

He does not see the doors of the truck being opened, but soon he is sliding into the shelter of muddy leather seats, the scent of spilt fuel overpowering that of the caustic heat and the black roof dimming already bleak daylight. The shadows of his family flit to their doors as his is slammed shut, and their laboured breathing is loud against the cries from the street when his father slides a thumb over the ignition.

They are forced to move slowly: the townspeople weave and lurch to their homes, retching and straying into the road to thump their shadows against his window. Finnick’s sore, rapid breaths cast measured bursts of mist over the glass as he watches them bar wooden shutters behind the expanses of peeling plaster walls, the panicked feet kicking at rotting crates and tripping on the streets’ cracked concrete.

His chest hurts. Despite himself, Finnick’s eyelids droop.

The crowd begins to clear on the outskirts of the town, and as the dirt track narrows towards the cliffs, Brenn’s cool knuckles gently scrape wet strands from his forehead, resting there in the way his mother’s does when Finnick is ill. His eyes are about to drift shut when the pressure falls away. Brenn mutters something, leaning forwards in his seat, and he catches his parents’ relieved reflections in the central mirror.

Finnick is glad that he isn’t ill. It is his ninth birthday soon, and he won’t have fun if he’s forced to stay in bed.

The truck jolts over the rough road. From his seat – and through the sweeping rain – he cannot see the ocean, but he knows that it surges against the cliffs only metres away. He hopes it isn’t red. The lighthouse on the headland flashes closer.

His tongue feels dry. Arid air slips through parted, chapped lips. Rocked by the motion of the vehicle and rhythmic rain, it is easy to let his vision darken and head loll against the bulge of the door.

He is woken by warm arms and damp wool against his cheek. There are familiar shouts on the wind, the clinking of metal chains and grind of the generator close by. When it speaks, the low voice is urgent and raw. “Hand over your mouth, Finnick.”

He does so, and his view of home is distorted by Brenn’s brown hair and broad shoulder as the wind tunnels chills in his ears. The stunted cliff plants lie flat against the earth and rusty sea foam is spewed over stubbles of turf at the land’s edge. Amongst the scrub, fractured feathers flinch.

The lighthouse on the headland next to the Farm glares its brightness through the storm on its squat, skeletal frame.

Nearing home, he recognises the sturdy, anxious voices of Blar and Dilan as Brenn leaps the steps of the porch that Finnick cannot see – his jaw jolts against his brother’s bones with the movement. Through the dip in the high cliffs, Finnick catches a glimpse of swelling crimson waves before the wooden door is slammed and bolted against the rain.

Lights flicker on, the holoscreen stuttering to life with them as feet pound up the stairs in the direction of echoing, hacking coughs that Finnick knows belong to his grandfather. Windows rattle in their casings and the lighthouse’s distant beams cast dim shadows through them.

It is no warmer here, and the cramped space clamours with tense questions, running water and hurried strides. Finnick is deposited on the sofa; he sinks into the lumpy brown cushions, his distracted gaze hovering between the dazzling noise of the Capitol news channel and the adults’ troubled conversation. His mother throws low words behind her as she hurriedly jams damp towels into the cracks of the windowsills.

“It doesn’t matter.” Fabric drips puddles on grey linoleum tiles. “Even if the produce is found to be clear of toxins, the Capitol won’t take anything if it’s discoloured – and it will be.”

There is a thump above their heads – she glances upwards, her mouth tightening and slim neck taut. Brenn and his father’s two employees shuffle to lean against the stiff backs of mismatched chairs, arms laden with waiting drenched cloths. Blar, back bent, crosses the cramped room to the window behind Finnick’s sofa, gnarled hands fumbling against the panes.

In the lull, Finnick’s half-lidded eyes wander to the colourful Capitol woman on the screen, her teeth glinting at pictures of fancy people in rich clothes, their manicured nails clasping long glasses of gold liquid.

_“Seen with his lovely partner at Head Gamemaker Lyreshaw’s annual Games after-party, the Minister of -.”_

“This won’t affect the kelp, though, will it?” Dilan’s growl cuts through the woman’s translucent trills, shaking the scarf from his face to hang at his collar.

_“An unexpected flare for showmanship -.”_

Finnick slides the volume on the controller lower, suddenly alert and watching over drawn-up knees. He thinks of the importance of ‘yield’ and of his father’s worry.

Brielle twists another cloth in her hands and sighs, loose hairs pale by her lips. “I don’t know. We’ve never had a bloom like this.”

The men nod, solemn, and Finnick frowns at his trousers. If the kelp isn’t alright, they will be poor. He really doesn’t want to have to leave the Farm.

His mother moves to join Blar - as she passes, her hand drops to brush over her son’s head and Finnick leans into the gentle contact, shoulders hunched and body folded. Her smile is warm, but the lines are deep around her eyes.

She turns to face the window, brisker. “The Capitol men will arrive in an hour or so, anyway.” There is an edge to her words. “They’ll clear the water.”

A pause. Brielle turns from the rain, gesturing ahead and stretching her lips upwards. “Get out, then.” Her voice is friendly, but creases line her forehead. “I need to do the door – you’d better do the same. Give my love to the kids, Dilan.”

The men shuffle towards the exit with nods of understanding, securing their scarves over their faces. As Dilan unbolts the door, Blar sends a crinkled wink to Finnick, anxious and frowning amongst the cushions of the couch. Despite the quivering of his pulse, he smiles in reply.

The workers share a glance as they lift the latch, and Finnick instinctively holds his breath. His mother’s hand reaches for his and holds it gently over his mouth as the door is pulled open to battering winds and the blurred outline of the headland with its flashing light. Then Blar and Dilan are gone – fighting the storm back to the pale boxes of their homes across the cliff – and Brenn is pushing the thick wood back into its frame as the burning air brushes over their faces. Even when the locks are slid back into place, Brielle does not allow Finnick to lower his hand. The scent, though dimmer, still crawls in his throat.

Above, the coughs worsen.

Time passes with no movement. Brenn holds his collar over his nose, eyeing the draft at the threshold with displeasure, and Finnick’s gaze slopes back to the holoscreen on the wall, drawn to the bright colours and quick movements. Thin women stride up and down a ramp like the slipways at the harbour. He cannot make sense of their clothes and there is no story. He loses interest.

Brielle’s fingers are leaving his and he is glad: his hands have been made warm and sticky by his breath.

“Brenn, you finish in here.” Her eyes rise to the ceiling. “I’ll help your father upstairs.”

She leaves, her footsteps creaking in the distance.

Finnick shifts in discomfort. He is tired: his limbs still ache and his chest is sore, but his heart beats quickly and he doesn’t think he will be able to sleep again. Images of his parents’ fatigued features and dead fish flash with every blink and the rain clatters against the windows. His grandfather is still coughing, and Brenn looks back at him, understanding.

He gestures to the holoscreen. “You can turn it up again, Finnick.”

Finnick nods and fumbles hurriedly for the transparent controller on the arm of the sofa, sliding the blue dot up the volume bar until the noise blares louder than the wind and echoes from upstairs. Brenn does not complain.

His older brother is working around the door’s final bolt when words in bold gold-and-black materialise above the head of the toothy broadcaster: _‘Breaking News’_.

_“This just in: the citizens of District Four woke this morning to the horrifying sight...”_

Finnick’s eyes are round as Brenn’s head emerges from behind their father’s favourite chair and the aging springs of the sofa sink wearily with his brother’s added weight.

The feed is live – taken from the cliff-top of a beach he does not recognise. The rocks are blacker, the housing on land sparser, but the water is the same muddy crimson that lurks beyond the walls of their home.

“I should get Dad and Brielle.” But Brenn remains where he is.

Perhaps the wind is stronger there, because the orange-skinned reporter disappears on occasion, buffeted from view, and he squints through the screen towards Finnick with some discomfort. The lower half of his face is obscured by a white, tubed mask pocked with holes, but Finnick hears his voice clearly as he speaks.

_“You can see behind me, stretching for nearly a hundred miles to the south, the biggest and most toxic algal bloom to have broached the shores of our beautiful District Four’s coast for at least thirty years. Billions of phytoplankton, the little red creatures behind this event, are presumed to have been swept in by the unseasonably poor weather -.”_

“Brenn, if you’ve finished down here…what’s this?” Brielle’s voice rasps. The brothers glance away from the screen to see her wiping damp hands against her trousers, brows raised above bloodshot eyes. Her face is still as she watches the dark swell on-screen. Finnick lowers the volume as his mother steps closer. “They took their time: the tide’s been here more than two hours.”

Brenn’s reply is mumbled distantly, gaze returning to the screen as a wave of rain lashes the windows. The length of Finnick’s throat tickles uncomfortably.

The orange man continues.

_“However, District Four will enjoy one surprising upside to this unfortunate development: at night, the water will be lit up by a fireworks display of light and colour.”_

A sharp hum draws Finnick to Brielle’s frown.

_“These critters-”_

“Critters?”

Finnick thinks she seems cross, but isn’t sure why: he likes the word.

_“-Known as Dinoflagellates, are actually bioluminescent, meaning that – to those of you who don’t kn-”_

“Oh, please.”

A swift stride to the sofa, and the remote is lifted from Finnick’s grasp to mute the holoscreen. Softer, smiling, but still hoarse: “Let me know if it seems they’ve decided to tell us something worth hearing.”

There is quiet as she moves to return to the stairs, dropping the remote to the seat between him and Brenn, and so Finnick does not need to strain to hear the creaks of his father’s steps as he enters the room. Leaning close, his parents mutter worries in each other’s ears.

Finnick fiddles with the frayed edge of the sofa’s seat – he wants to know if the news reporter will tell him anything else about the glowing creatures. Tentatively, he turns the volume up. No one objects, but Brenn huffs slightly beside him.

His parents, Brielle’s hand on Thurl’s arm, move to the biggest armchair, his mother perched on its side and downcast lips by his ear. Finnick slides the blue dot higher.

_“We’ll have to be patient in our wait for our favourite Four-born delicacies while the ocean is cleaned and its produce rigorously tested-”_

“And destroyed.” Brenn’s arms cross over his chest.

_“But, until then, I’m sure we’ll all be behind District Four in their struggle against the elements. Back to you in the studio, Krizia.”_

The toothy woman grins wide. _“Thank you, Magnus. Hang in there, District Four. We’re thinking of you.”_

His mother shakes her head at the edge of his vision.

_“And, of course, it’s that time of year, again! As District Four’s proud victor, Kaitlynn Tarrent, makes herself comfortable in her new home, we recap another nail-biting season of Games. I’ll leave this bit to you, Caesar. Shame about the weather, don’t you think?”_

There is a shuffling beside him, and the volume is muted again. Caesar Flickerman’s animated grin and rich plum hair fill the screen to the accompaniment of howling wind and battering rain. The room is dark beyond the glow of the screen – there is still no sun and Finnick, chilled, pushes his head into the crook of Brenn’s elbow, cheek scratched by the thick wool.

From over tangled blue fibres, he watches the weary closeness of his parents: Thurl slouched into the cushions of his chair and Brielle sloped on the arm. Their hands lie close, not quite touching, and both gazes are lowered.

“We won’t be able to catch anything, and the markets will be empty. Brenn’s past Tesserae age.” His father’s voice is dry and muted – Finnick’s stomach feels heavy.

“I’ll double my shifts on the lines.”

“So will everyone else, and the tram lines won’t provide stock for us to buy.”

A flash from the holoscreen. Caesar is gesturing to jolting, vivid images of Games about which Finnick has heard, but seen little of. Frothing black waves, a towering cavern cluttered by gulls – he does not think he would choose to play there.

Brielle grips Thurl’s hand with her own. “We’ll manage.”

There are glints of metal in the dark; sparks dampened by glistening tunnels. A boy in blood.

“At least there are the food parcels this year.”

Thurl doesn’t reply.

A glass box enclosing the keys to her new home is raised before her, but Kaitlynn Tarrent’s fingers comb frantically through loosened lines of hair and her mouth never moves.

His parents and brother are still, but the uncomfortable rippling sensation in Finnick’s chest remains. He doesn’t want to leave the Farm.

Caesar Flickerman laughs without creasing his eyes as the iron sky beyond the window blurs the cliffs.

His grandfather’s coughs do not abate.

 

* * *

 

For three days, the citizens of District Four remain locked in their homes.

The Capitol arrives quickly; stocks of seafood produce are already running low in the city following the poor fishing season, and the authorities do not desire complaints. Men and women in rubber suits sweep the coast with great rumbling machines and whirring motors that, from Finnick and Brenn’s bedroom window, seem to choke life from their cove as the waters are churned and bleached.

The beaches and cliffs are stripped of carcases and the waste is burnt in pits by the estuaries. The shellfish gathered from the farms are still clicking wet bubbles through the cracks in their husks as smoke leeches light from the horizon.

Inland, in drier earth, a second pit is dug. Long and narrow, it forms a dyke at the edge of the town’s cemetery and, into it, the bodies of the very elderly, the very young and the very weak are to be deposited in the coming days, all too fragile to survive the concentrated onslaught of the hot toxic fumes.

 

* * *

 

On the fourth day after the red tide is first sighted, as he turns nine, Finnick attends his grandfather’s funeral. His mother kisses his forehead and whispers promises of presents and celebrations for him next year as the bulk of cloth is lowered into the ditch and scattered with white powder. He wonders why the bodies can’t be buried at sea – as he knows Corrin’s uncle’s was last year – but remembers the grinding machines and the probing men wrapped in plastic suits and thinks that it may be better this way. The bundle beside his grandfather’s is very small.

It is the first time he sees his father cry.

 

* * *

 

 

When the seas have cleared, the Odair Farm gathers the crop of kelp that should be sold at the market and haul it, instead, to be fermented in barrels by their outhouses in the hopes of adding to their fuel stock. The plants are discoloured, bitten by the acidic tide into gnarled strings of foul-smelling weed. What little fuel is usable makes the engine of their truck splutter.

For weeks, little revenue is procured from the ocean. Tesserae claims increase throughout the District, and the queues lining the streets for Victory Food Parcels wind from the town square to the docks.

 

* * *

 

By winter, only two farms lining the town’s coast continue to function. The Odairs, eyes on their accounts, sow small crops of hardy breeds and monitor growth with unease.

Finnick, in beginning a game of ‘treasure hunt’, opens his mother’s jewellery box one night to find it empty. He doesn’t ask why.

 

* * *

 

“After this one, you’re finished. The quicker you do it, the quicker you get to swim.”

A frustrated huff. Two lengths of rough twine are tweaked straight.

There have been six months of clear water, healthy crops and good weather and, today, Brielle practices Carrick Bends with her boy under bright skies and a high sun. Tanned, skinny legs dangle from the pontoon, brushing slowly through cool water and she catches the way Finnick’s green eyes wander to the waves at the rim of the cove with each kick of his feet.

His fingers have stilled over the knot, again.

“Last step?” She prompts.

He starts a little, but searches her face eagerly for permission as his small hands tug the lines tight and proffer the finished article. The knot is crude, but Finnick’s limbs are already sliding impatiently from the wooden deck, so she nods – pretending not to notice – and he vanishes beneath the surface, the water almost undisturbed. As the pontoon rocks with the shift in weight, his pale shadow ripples upwards, skimming the length of floating land and ducking beneath it.

Brielle sighs; leans back on her elbows.

The cove feels empty; the rows of kelp that usually darken the surface had been harvested that morning while the light was still dim, her husband and the boys having left shortly afterwards for the Southern City in the hopes of trading with intra-district merchants – perhaps even with the Capitol. She had waited, eyes hooded and speech sluggish, with Blar and Finnick by the cliff winch as _Murel_ had been loaded with slick tangles of weed, hefted and hacked into trails of glistening wetness that spilled over the workers’ arms and slopped over the sides of the boat.

Finnick had stood, jiggling, by the controls of the winch, tracing the outlines of buttons and levers and shooting devilish looks under his lashes at the adults behind him, who smiled wryly at each other when he turned away. As the kelp was packed into crates and heaped onto the truck, he had scooped up loose fronds and trailed them through the grass, whipping at the air or winding them around his wrists to show his brother that he’d been caught by pirates, whose forbearing response was muffled by the exertion of heavy lifting.

Eventually, Brielle had been forced to abandon her task of securing the crates and allow Finnick to ‘help’ by collecting the morning’s leftovers. Two hours after the truck had rolled down the dirt track towards town, Finnick had presented her with his efforts. The mound of weed-scraps continues to dry on the doorstep of the house, and Brielle hopes that the sun will make it light enough to move before the smell permeates the ground floor.

Beside her, there is a soft splash – a foot has emerged from the water and shakes a wave at the pontoon. An amused hum rises in her throat as she leans to push her wrist beneath the surface and wave in return, laughing when the foot vanishes and fingers grab her own, followed by the emergence of a drenched, blond head dribbling salty liquid from the mouth. “Are you coming in?”

Brielle smiles, but shakes her head. “You have fun, though.”

A moment’s disappointed frown, and Finnick has vanished again, kicking towards the opposite cliff.

Her eyes drift shut, face tilted towards the sun as brightness warms the colours beneath her lids. A slow breeze is building. Finnick splashes in the distance.

The Games begin next week.

Brow creasing, she turns on her side and blinks to gaze at the lichen-spotted wooden planks beneath her, Finnick’s abandoned twine twitching with the wind.

Across town, posters and flashing screens have been erected to advertise the reaping and the peacekeepers begin to grow in number. There have been announcements; in the markets, warehouses and fisheries – even in the schools, as Finnick had told her the other day – reminding them of the importance of formal dress for a televised event and recommending caution against forgetfulness. Nobody forgets the reaping.

Brielle is thankful, at least, that neither of her boys are of reaping age. She had endured seven years of worry for Brenn after her marriage and dreads the seven she will experience for her son, when his time comes. A glance towards Finnick’s skinny form, spiralling through the water along the length of an empty kelp-line; she is grateful, secretly, that they will never be able to afford the training available to the city children.

Kaitlynn Tarrent has not been seen in public since her Victory Tour.

Towards the centre of the cove, small against the horizon visible through its mouth, Finnick continues to swim with earnest intensity in a game to which she isn’t privy, rolling and diving from imagined threats and crossing the expanse of water from one cliff-face to the other. Through the glare of the sun, Brielle believes she sees him narrating his progress as he goes.

In the distance, gulls and cormorants wheel over open ocean, circling to return to their crowded roosts in the crags of turf-topped sheer rock. These islands, the ancient remains of hills and valleys lost when the land flooded and the Great Lake was formed, litter the horizon in clumps of towering uneven stone. Below them, the lilting shadows of the kelp forest stretch outwards, swaying with the tide. During summer fogs and winter storms, these waters are unnavigable.

Her eyes drift to the creaking barnacled sides of _Murel_ , noting the rusting bolts on the outrigger, the missing cleats and dent to the hull and is glad they do not have to rely on trawling on this coast.

_Murel_ is moored between the heaviest of the pontoons, the sea slopping heavily at her base – she, like her namesake, is showing her age. Her mother-in-law has not left the house since Banan Odair’s death during the red tide.

A shout from the water; she turns to see Finnick bobbing in gentle surf, a hand gripping the blue nylon rope of a distant line, the other raised towards land. Expectant, she follows his gaze and hears the answering yell, low but cheerful, and hums a laugh as Brenn jogs to the edge of cliff steps. She hadn’t heard the rumble of the truck’s approach, but sees she needn’t worry about the success of the trip.

Finnick has edged closer to the pontoon, pulling himself along the rough rope with his chin skimming the water’s surface and imping a tense, mischievous grin towards his brother. Brenn has noticed – his arms are curled and fingers clawed in imitation of the ancient creatures (more like mutts than any lizard she has seen) sometimes featured in Capitol documentaries as he hops, faux-stealthy, from the wave-stained rock steps to the floating deck.

Brenn’s approach rocks the pontoon dangerously as he dodges Finnick’s hurled sprays of water and tugs his shoes and shirt off. With a growl and mock pounce, her step-son throws himself forwards, landing hard and vanishing beneath the surface. For a moment, there are only Finnick’s excited breaths as he searches for Brenn’s shadow, arms swirling to keep himself afloat. As she watches, he gasps a sudden yelp as his ankles are grabbed from below; he is pulled under.

A strange lurch in her chest – she swallows it.

Brielle knows – has repeated it to herself in the still moments of early mornings, before she rises for her shift on the tram lines – that there is little need to worry for Finnick. Their district is large, with thousands of children herded to the Southern City every year. Even District Four’s reaping bowls, twice the size of those shown in outlying districts, rarely proffer a name that enters the arena. They have volunteers, and she is not the only grateful parent.

For as long as she is able, she will keep him from the Games. Brielle ignores the muttered thought that reminds her: _only two years ‘til his first reaping_.

Brenn floats, face-up, unmoving with limbs spread-eagled as Finnick circles him, creeping inwards and ducking when his brother spots his movements. Seconds later, a spluttering Brenn is dragged underwater by wiry arms wrapped around his middle.

Above the occasional splash and laughing breath, there is a quiet step behind her; Thurl’s callused hand strokes the column of her neck, the soft hair behind her ear. Brielle leans into his touch, squinting up towards her husband’s sun-worn features, the light hazel eyes and rare smile that warms misleadingly stern features. He is so rarely demonstrative in front of others: the sale has gone well.

 

* * *

 

Dripping, shivering, but still taught with energy, Finnick is sent to gather sea kale from the strip of sand two cliffs north with a towel draped over his shoulders. She is right not to expect him back dry.

He drops his towel on the kitchen tiles at his feet and scrubs, too vigorously, at the green-grey fans of kale. His nose, cheeks and shoulders are tinged red; every year, he burns, and every year the fair skin she shares with him darkens a little further.

That night, Brielle shows him how to prepare fresh Opaleye, gifted in celebration by Thurl and caught on the shores of the Southern City. Finnick, tentative, strokes silver fins and dabs at the bright blue eyes with a finger nail. But as she guts, scales and slices to its bones, he is distracted by the holoscreen and the motions of a loud Capitol drama, sprinkling salt over the white flesh with his gaze peering into the other room.

Brielle talks him through the process, recalling his attention as she crushes the expensive form of a lime and slides the fish into spitting oil, but allows him to hover at the doorway, rocking in unconscious rolls of his feet to the beat of advert-breaks. Beyond him, artificial light flickers over the sagging cheeks and drooping lids of Murel, slumped against the cushions of the armchair she can no longer leave without Thurl’s strength.

Finnick hums an absent-minded laugh at the scene beyond her view, but Murel remains passive.

Brow creasing, Brielle returns to mincing the kale.

 

* * *

 

The tram clatters and hisses and masks much of the conversation, but Finnick strains to hear it through the gap between the seats, nonetheless.

“Not what you’ll hear from any of the others, but it’s no lie.” The woman’s hoarse voice is hushed, face lowered and lined lips secretive. “He knows one of the men who got the body out.”

As he had knotted his laces by the front door that morning, Caesar Flickerman regretfully announced that their most recent victor had slipped in her bathroom, cracked her skull against the basin and never woken up. But that’s not what he’s hearing whispered two rows back.

The Games have ended – the winner, a tall boy from District One with funny hair, was presented with the crown two days ago, having been lifted, laughing, from a frozen field dyed red. Amongst his friends, stories circle of the monster-boy who ate other tributes and was swallowed by an avalanche even as he carved from a victim’s leg. Finnick cannot be not sure, though, that this is true: he has been helping his mother on the tramlines since the Games began, the fifth summer of being taken from school for work experience. The Capitol replays didn’t include a monster-boy.

On the Farm, they are mooring the new lines in the same thick sea mist that coats the town’s narrow streets. Finnick would rather be with them, looping coarse rope through the buoys and leaning over _Murel’s_ decks to watch fish hover at the sides, but he has been told – despite his repeated denials and promises – that he is too young to work on the boat; that, though they have never said it outright, he will get in the way.

So, when he could be spending his time in the cove, he is left eaves-dropping on tram gossip or pacing the worn line of the aisle, the fog too thick to watch even the house-fronts through the windows. The women he spies on now boarded only minutes ago, but already they have proved more interesting than the morning’s usual rush of crammed harbour and fishery workers, jackets thick with the scent of old fish and packs weighted with the midday meal.

It’s nearing noon, the edges of scrubland approaching through the windows, and the tram has emptied. There aren’t many who travel away from town at this hour.

The taller of the women, quiet ‘til now, speaks softly. “They had the easy job, then. She didn’t look like she weighed much.”

Finnick curls himself tighter into the seat, ear pressing as close to empty space as he dares.

“It’s the cleaners I pity most-”

“No – they’ve left it to the family.” A hum of disapproval. “To clean your daughter’s blood off the floor…”

He can picture the smooth tiles of victors’ bathrooms, the knife – worn at the handle like the one his parents skin fish with – submerged in blood. Finnick wonders how it would look; long and broad like a tide pool, or a puddle like when Brenn had caught his elbow in the boat winch? Would it be like the waste of red ice where the cackling boy had stood? It must have hurt a lot. He thinks: _how much does it hurt to die?_

A thrill shivers across his shoulders.

Caesar Flickerman couldn’t have got it wrong. At school, Finnick’s class has learnt about ‘suicide’; that it is weak, selfish; that the families, district and workers suffer and that a strong person respects that. Perhaps Caesar was trying to protect the family?

It seems strange to Finnick that a victor would kill themselves. Kaitlynn Tarrent got to live in a big house and do whatever she wanted, and she had won the greatest honour anyone in Panem could hope for. He imagines that she must still have been sad about killing the other tributes, but it had been a long time, and she had to do it. The thought solidifies: the women must be wrong.

He will wait until the final stop, ‘til they’ve left. His mother will know.

The women have fallen silent, and the pale wash of cloaked scrubland is giving way to the cypress forests, the tram tilting with the incline of the hills. Finnick shifts, smoothing the stained fabric of the seat by his nose as the shadows of trunks lean through the fog and the wheels whine against the steepening track.

Only these two passengers head to the cliff towns, where hard winds flatten plant-life and the land grows too tall for paths to be made to the sea’s edge. Over these hills, the faint horizon of the Great Lake is visible, an endless line of reflective grey to counter the blue of the ocean. There is a break in the trees – today, it is obscured by fog.

The hard tones of the bell clang as they approach the metal and concrete walls of the stop, brakes squealing with their juddering halt.

“Finnick.” His mother calls from the front. “Push the button for the doors?”

He unfolds himself from the seat, avoiding the eyes of the women and shuffling down the aisle with head bowed. There are soft footsteps behind him as he reaches the controls and presses, without waiting for instruction, the black button by his mother’s knee, watching the district seal stamped on her uniform pockets shift with her movements.

The doors hiss and clank, and Brielle offers a farewell to the passengers as they walk into the damp whiteness. When Finnick chances a glance to the exit, the taller woman is staring back. He cringes.

“Change the number?” His mother is smiling at him, slouching and elbow resting on the accelerator.

Finnick shakes his head, but Brielle raises a brow. “And you say…?”

“No, thank you.” He recites.

Leaning past him, her broad five-strand braid slipping over her shoulder, long fingers type digits into the route screen to the sound of electronic clicks.

He is tentative, sensing the weight of a secret, but unsure as to its nature. “How did Kaitlynn Tarrent die?”

She does not look up, running her hands along the dashboard and flicking switches with practiced swiftness. “There was an accident. You were with us when we watched the news.”

“Did she kill herself?”

Brielle frowns sharply at him, mouth thinning, and he squirms against the urge to apologise. Her voice is suddenly quiet. “What makes you say that?”

“I heard those ladies talking about it. They said she cut her wrists.”

His mother’s face has paled, eyes tight. She glances upwards, and Finnick follows her gaze to the security camera that rests above the driver’s seat.

There is a pause in which she appears to study the dials on the dashboard. When she turns back to him, she is suddenly stern and her voice louder than before. “You know you shouldn’t eavesdrop. Those women are wrong. Kaitlynn Tarrent slipped and hit her head. It’s very sad, but sometimes these things happen and people feel a need to make them seem bigger than they are.”

Finnick nods, shame inching over his cheeks as he glances away to the fog pressing at the windshield. A warm hand touches his shoulder – he looks back.

Brielle hesitates; speaks quickly: “don’t repeat what they said.”

 

* * *

 

Kaitlynn Tarrent does not receive a public funeral, and in the days following her death, the Tarrent family is quietly relocated. No forwarding address is given.

 

* * *

 

The shadows lengthen and Finnick huffs, frustrated, as he trails a limp frond of kelp across the ground, the clap of its impact against the white wall of the office building muffled by a strong breeze. The season is turning; the expanses of cliffs, once carpeted in the bright flowers of summer, are now a dull green and the remainders; thrift, buckwheat and sagewort, shrink dully with the changing light.

The remnants of the sun – losing their warmth, now – dip past the horizon, silhouetting the distant rock spires and lighthouse against a matt-velvet surf. It is late; hours ago, Finnick and his mother had spooned soft kelp bass into his grandmother’s lax mouth, their own plates cooling on their laps, before Brielle had joined the others in the office. Finnick, in his solo wanderings between the Farm outhouses, does not understand how a meeting can take so long.

There is a new worker on the Farm, today: a girl. Finnick had watched her smudge of bright orange hair walk the long dirt track from town as he plucked grass beneath the lighthouse’s barbed-wire fence.

The best hours of the day have been lost in waiting, and the thin spears propped against the wall will need to be returned. Finnick cannot go spearfishing without his father.

Another wet slap.

The girl must have distracted them. He had refused when asked if he wanted to join them, but Finnick now thinks he might have been able to remind the adults of his father’s promise, or at least to stop them talking for so long. Still, the office is damp and has an odd smell – the adults would have talked, Finnick would have daydreamed and, when his knees inevitably began to jiggle, be told off by his father and sent to wait outside.

Huffing louder, he drops into a squat, and begins to wind the frond in zig-zags up his bare calf, pulling at the holdfast so that his leg is lifted, puppet-like, from the ground. He rolls to his back, staring half-lidded at the bindings and forcing the wrapped limb to swing from left to right. Finnick eventually lets go, leg flopping onto dirt and grass, and watches roll after fat roll of cloud cross the sky, dark weight lit orange by the sunset.

To the left of where he lies, there is a rusty click, and the peeling paint of the office door swings open to the rustling of coats and inconsiderately cheerful voices. Dilan, leading Blar by the elbow, leaves for the distant shapes of their homes as Finnick’s family and the red-haired girl chat and laugh. When Brenn rounds the door, last to leave, there is a strange smile settled on his features.

Finnick rolls himself to his feet and does not alter the set of his scowl.

With a hand on the newcomer’s shoulder, his mother turns – finally – to smile at his grim expression. “Finnick, this is Ida McQuaide. She’ll be taking over for Blar.”

Careful to keep the turn of his mouth severe, he waits, eyes on an up-lit cloud above their heads, for his apology. He tells himself he doesn’t care that he’s being rude.

From the corner of his vision, the guilty party smiles prettily through thin lips and pale cheeks. “Hello, Finnick. It’s nice to meet you.”

He holds his silence, but catches his mother’s expression and squirms a grudging ‘hello’ at the grass.

“Finnick.” Brielle’s tone draws his reluctant gaze back to her. “Ida needs to see the nursery, and I know how good you are at explaining things. Why don’t you show her around?”

He shrugs, struggling to keep his frown in place. It’s true that he can read the growth charts and do checks of the lab equipment; he even helps spool the new seeds _(or ‘sporophytes’, he supplies proudly)_ into their tanks. He likes to think he knows what he’s doing. He _really_ likes that his mother thinks so, too.

But he still hadn’t been able to try spearfishing today, and his stomach wriggles with frustration. Finnick turns a careful glare to his father’s rough features as his parents exchange amused looks – the kinds that make Finnick feel silly and angry all at once – before Thurl assures him that they will try again tomorrow.

Righteously indignant, but somewhat mollified, Finnick turns and stomps towards the nursery, kelp frond and newcomer trailing behind him.

The wind masks his family’s titters.

 

* * *

 

 

Brenn is often away in the evenings following Ida’s arrival, leaving early and arriving late with secretive smiles and warmed features. Once, over plates of sheepshead speared by Finnick that afternoon, he accuses Brenn of kissing her – he is appalled when Brenn does not protest.

 

* * *

 

The stones bruise the soles of his feet and the water is icy, but Finnick has caught eight trout this afternoon, and that’s four more than everybody else – even Aiden. His breath curls white from his mouth as he tucks the slippery form of his latest catch – small, but large enough – into the canvas bag at his waist and bends back to the quivering surface of the stream to wash pink blood from his hands.

Dull clacks echo from downstream.

Finnick has found a deeper, calmer bend in the brook, shaded by overhanging muddied roots and slipping beneath the moss-clad banks. The water here is very still and dark beneath its reflection of the heavy white sky, unmoved by the rippling current that laps at his knees and the edges of his rolled trousers.

He knows he will find more fish here – he is very pleased that Aiden did not think to walk further from the fallen oak they had entered by, or Aiden might have caught them all by now.

The breeze cuts through his damp jumper, shoulders wiggling a shiver and nose dripping, but he remains focused on the depths a metre from his feet. A flash of brightness catches dull light, darting from the stillness to a flat slab of smooth stone – much closer and shallower than the undercut, and much easier to snare.

Limbs stilled and tense, Finnick edges through the water, silt and river-grit digging into the cracks between his toes in his efforts to keep the bed undisturbed. In his pocket is the chosen rock, black-orange and heavy but a fit for his hands, and he slips it into his raw, cracked fingers, bending ‘til he sees past the glossy surface of the water. Arms raised, he watches.

Another crack from beyond the twist in the stream.

He drops his arms, weight in his wrists, and strikes the rock hard, abandoning his makeshift hammer in the splash as the fish jolts, unsteady, from the shadows and spasms into open water. His fingers, caging and gripping tight, lift the trout and flip it, twitching, onto the banks.

Plunging his arm back for his iron-stone, he wades quickly over and, gripping the fish hard by the tail, strikes it once, twice against the rocks of the shore – as his father tells him to. It is smaller than his other catches, but its glistening stripes of yellow, blue and red are very bright and he smiles as he pulls on the drawstring and lowers it into the bag.

He isn’t sure how long they have been out, but he is feeling the cold now, and thinks the light may have dimmed since he first wandered upstream. Over the rattling of bare branches overhanging the banks, there is a high shout – Gilley, he thinks – and he looks up as deep swilling splashes announce Aiden’s arrival in Finnick’s, previously quiet, part of the stream.

“Come and-”

“You’ve scared them off! I was onto a big one.” Through his bluff, he finds he is relieved: the skin of his legs is prickled in goose-bumps. He drops his pebble with a huff, wiping stiff fingers against the drier end of his trousers.

“But Gilley’s drowning Corrin!” Aiden is already turning back, excited. “He said her hair makes her look like a troll, so she pushed him and he tripped over this tiny rock and now she’s trying to pull his trousers off and won’t let him up. You’ve got to see!”

Finnick, tightening the drawstring of the bag at his waist, sloshes after him, slipping and reaching for the grass of the banks to steady himself as Aiden shakes flecks of mud and water from his dark arms, worn sleeves too high on his wrists and black locks hanging in dripping clods over his ears. Finnick’s own fringe is beginning to tickle at the corners of his eyes when they round the corner to the source of the shrieks.

Aiden mutters, blocking his view: “It does make her look like a troll, though.”

Considering, Finnick nods in agreement.

Over Aiden’s shoulder, Gilley – squatting waist-deep in water – pulls triumphantly at a limp trouser-leg, her hair short and flat around her face. Beneath her, thrashing and spluttering, Corrin flails after his lost clothes and attempts a high kick towards Gilley’s nose.

Rafer greets them with a grin over his shoulder from his post on the fallen evergreen oak. “It’s a good thing the fish are dead – they would have lost the lot.”

“Fricking would _not_.”

Gilley releases Corrin’s collar to glare angrily towards them, bony chin jutting and shoulders hunched as Corrin scrabbles for his trousers. Trembling and white-skinned, he tugs them back on, fingers searching his fish bag and mouthing his count. Finnick is pleased to note that his own catch is larger.  

Together, they wade towards the bank, reaching for the piles of coats, socks and boots that wait on dry rocks and passing their canvas bags to Aiden, who accepts them with a sheepish grin and quiet ‘thanks’ before loading them carefully into his plastic-lined schoolbag.

Finnick is sliding Brenn’s old coat over his back when Gilley’s boot slips on the sodden fibre of a root and she slides, cursing violently, to the edge of the water. Caked in filth, she hauls herself unsteadily to her feet and flicks grubby fingers towards the ground. “Shitting mud.”

Corrin, still sulking, broods over his shoelaces. “That’s not a word.”

“It is!”

“I haven’t heard it.”

“Not like you would know.” Her expression grows smug, arms folding. “You thought ‘poop’ was a swear.”

Blotchy colour flushes Corrin’s face as he scowls at his boots – he doesn’t answer.

Aiden, fully dressed and inspecting the seams of the rucksack, frowns at the streaks of brown coating her pale trousers and top, lips tight. “You should wash it off before we go back.”

“Why?”

He returns his gaze to the bag. “People will notice.”

“What, like they’re not going to notice we’re wet?”

“No.” His eyes remain averted, fingers busy at a tie. “Everyone gets wet, no one gets muddy – and they’d know it wasn’t swimming.”

Grumbling into her collar, Gilley turns to scrub handfuls of icy water over the patches of mud as Finnick clambers up the bank to join the others.

The legs of his trousers have dried by the time they reach the outskirts of town, narrow streets empty and littered with rotting wood and crumbling plaster. They will part in the town square, the closest point to each of their homes, but it will be another hour before Finnick reaches the Farm, and what little sun there is now will have set. His stomach feels light, and he is eager to find a towel and warm clothes.

He casts a guilty glance towards the long shape of Aiden’s profile and heavily stocked bag: his home, stilted over the flat waters of the estuaries, will be damp in this weather, and there will be no welcoming fire or full meal waiting for him. Aiden glances up, meeting Finnick’s eyes, and he is careful to grin in response.

Ahead, past dingy shop windows and broken pavement, there are shouts and slamming doors. In the distance, figures jog in spurts to the entrance of the town square, gathering in dense huddles that form the edges of a crowd. As Finnick approaches, the compressed mass of bodies squeezing him between Rafer and Aiden, a hush descends, heads turning to the bleak concrete of the peacekeepers’ office block.

In front of him, a woman draws her scarf tight around her throat.

Something stirs the air.

Pressed against the rough bricks of a wall, Finnick cranes to see past broad backs and wool padding, digging fingers and feet into its crags and pulling himself into short jumps that raise his head above those of the horde. With each leap, he glimpses the red of the Capitol flag and glints of white armour.

The black surfaces of tall televisions and speakers, usually erected during Games season, flicker on above them to reveal a small group of figures positioned in the middle of the square: three peacekeepers and a fourth bowed between them. Finnick, grazing his fingers across the hardness of the wall, returns his foot to the ground, eyes fixed on the centre screen. The image is mirrored throughout the space.

His friends cast confused glances to each other, but Aiden has stilled, eyes unblinking.

The man is dirty, shaking, his mouth clamped tight and rough chin trembling against thick, but tattered, fabric. In front of him sits a thick wooden block.

A female voice, amplified beneath the helmet of a peacekeeper, snaps hard syllables from the centre of the podium.

“As governed by the District Capitol of Panem, under the Panem Penal Code section 347, it is unlawful to procure livestock from land or sea owned by the aforementioned Capitol. A person found in violation of this section is guilty of theft and shall be subject to the public loss of one hand for each of two infractions.”

A high keen over the heads of the crowd. Finnick frowns, lips parting; unsure.

“A third infraction is punishable by public execution.”

Arms rising to fold and press against his chest, he feels his mouth dry. Beside him, Aiden shifts, jolting a hand to the base of his bag and the others follow the movement in nervous flicks of their eyelids. Corrin edges backwards.

On-screen, two armoured fists grip the arms of the quaking man and drag him, teeth bared and grinding, to the block, jerking a thin wrist into leather straps. The whimpers grow louder, looser, the man’s eyes crumpled to slits beneath matted blond hair. The screen focuses inwards on trembling fingers scarred with blisters and the precise metallic gleam of a blade.

It lowers, pausing above the bone.

Another whimper.

The blade falls.

A wailing shriek cuts the air, microphones screeching in protest, and the hand drops heavily from view. There are spurts of dark blood, buckles being unclasped and the motions of white-plated limbs cluttering the screens as the woman in front of Finnick flinches and turns away. The screens go black.

Over the cries and scuffles from the stage, the peacekeeper speaks again with blunt force. “Prosperity to Panem.”

The microphone dies; the speakers pop and crackle into silence.

With quick steps and muffled words, the crowd breaks and disperses, pushing past the group of children huddling at the edge of the courtyard. Finnick lingers, eyes on the empty podium, on the blood pooling on the square’s stone flags, and twitches his wrists against a sudden tingling that buzzes beneath his skin.

If his mother knew the risk he had taken…

It had felt so natural, harmless, binning for trout with his friends – not like stealing. Guilty heat churning in his chest, he realises that he has broken the law, that he is now a criminal and if he is caught, he will lose a hand like the screaming man. His parents and brother will find out – perhaps they will be watching when the blade severs his muscle and bone.

Beside him, Aiden mutters something low and fast, turning with hunched swiftness towards the street leading to the estuaries. Corrin and Gilley have already vanished. There is a tug at his elbow, and Finnick turns, lightheaded, to Rafer’s anxious frown.

“Come on.”

He allows himself to be pulled from the square by his coat, jostled by nervous citizens returning to their homes and Rafer’s clumsy, rushed steps. Urgent green eyes find his. “We can’t do that again.”

He doesn’t reply.

“We _can’t_.”

Swallowing, Finnick nods, and relief slackens Rafer’s expression.

As the roads empty of people, his friend’s grip loosening on his sleeve, every blink echoes with cracked screams, spurting blood and glinting steel.

Rafer shudders beside him.

The sky has darkened, and night is strengthening the wind – the cliff path will be difficult to navigate.

He remembers the man’s skeletal limbs and dirt; remembers Aiden’s face in the square, his house on the estuaries and oversized family struggling for food. Despite Rafer’s fear, Finnick thinks that it might have been worth the risk.


End file.
